Broadcom Agrees to Pay $12M

Broadcom, a semiconductor company based in Irvine, Calif., last week agreed to pay a penalty of $12 million to settle charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the SEC alleges that from June 1998 to May 2003, Broadcom, acting through its top officers, misrepresented the dates on which stock options were granted to executives and employees.

Broadcom's chairman and chief technology officer along with its former CEO sat on the two-member option committee with authority to approve options to employees and all but the most senior executives, whose grants were to be decided by two independent directors comprising Broadcom's compensation committee.